Tag Archives: Results

treat

It’s All in Your Head: Treat vs. Reward

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It’s interesting when an idea or specific stumbling block seems to be in the Zeitgeist. Three people have mentioned in the past week the notion of counterproductive reward strategies and weight loss. In Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before (mentioned here ad nauseum 😀 ) one of the key points is the idea of “treat versus reward.”

What to do? You’ve been “good” all week. Shouldn’t you have a reward?

Let’s take this step by step. By ‘good’ you mean you ate well and exercised. I would submit the first challenge is attaching moral values to these behaviors. They are certainly good FOR you, but so is flossing and no one thinks they should get to have an Oreo because they did it (speaking of counterproductive!) :)

“Rewarding” ourselves for a behavior can actually make us feel negatively about the behavior. If it’s good and good for us, isn’t doing it and the results we get ‘reward’ enough?

Let’s flip our thinking to “treats.” I am reminded of Donna and Tom’s “Treat Yo self” tradition on Parks and Rec. Something for you just because. NOT because you did what you feel better doing anyway :). (My favorite comment from one of the people who inspired this blog was that _not_ cheating out of plan was a “mental treat.” She loved NOT sweating the scale or feeling bad the next day. The mental ‘hangover’ just wasn’t worth it to her.)

Don’t earn your food. Period. Think of other ways to “treat yo self.”

All the best,

Marcey

Coach Marcey Tidwell started as a client with NGPT in January 2011. Joining the team as an accountability coach, she wears many hats in assisting the Meltdown Nation! Nurse Marcey by day, she brings a wealth of knowledge the program!

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Coaches Corner: The Goldilocks Theorem with Coach Marcey

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We’re speeding through the second half of the January bootcamp as I write this. The beginning of the year has a special arbitrary motivational magic, so the results are generally especially impressive. But in the way of all or nothing thinking that is human nature, sometimes participants are incredibly focused on that “finish line.” I GET TO GO BACK TO NORMAL!!!! You may even have family and friends who are counting the days until graduation.

Not so fast there.

Normal is what brought you to NGPT.

Normal is common. Ordinary. Conventional.

I suspect very few of us grew up hoping to live a common life.

A certain percentage of people participating in the program will finish viewing it as a one-off. They go HARD for eight weeks and then stop. Been there, got the cool Tshirt, now where’s my real bread?

OR, some may go on the other end, continue to push to the extreme, eventually burning out.

Our dance teacher Matt says that when we are trying to learn a new move, we’ll generally over-do motions, then under-do, before settling into that “just right” Goldilocks middle ground.

Start to consider what your “just right” mindset looks like. Encourage yourself to give it your all during this launch period, but also save room for the idea that life is not meant to be a series of bootcamps with months of hedonistic abandon linking them. It may take more than one to cement the lifestyle, but know that the goal of your coaches is to give you the information to make good choices that fit into your life outside the bootcamp confines. The Meltdown system is set up to provide you with ongoing checkpoints to determine whether your “just right” might be a little “too much” or “too little” to maintain results.

“The rest of your life” is too scary a thought to contemplate on any topic. AA only asks you to take it one day at a time. I’m going to ask you this: make one small step towards committing to your post-bootcamp life. Go now and sign up for your week 10 weigh-in. (That’s March 20th or 22ndish - the weekend closing out spring break here in beautiful Bloomington.) Maybe you’ll be vacationing that week, but tell yourself NOW that that critical checkpoint will not pass without you honoring your eight weeks of hard work by holding yourself accountable for “what’s next.”

And when you do this? Drop me an email at [email protected] and tell me, and the one thing you’re currently celebrating so far in your progress.

AND? If you’ve fallen off the wagon from a prior Meltdown adventure, take that FIRST step toward regaining control - weigh-in this weekend (it’s not a bootcamper checkpoint!) and email me. We miss you. You’re always a member of the Meltdown family no matter where you’ve traveled since we last saw you :).

Coach Marcey

Coach Marcey Tidwell

Coach Marcey Tidwell is started as a client with NGPT in January 2011. Joining the team as an accountability coach, she wears many hats in assisting the Meltdown Nation! Nurse Marcey by day, she brings a wealth of knowledge the program!

 

Getting Results: Doing Something vs Getting Something DONE

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I think that the one thing that I see people worry about the most is back sliding with their results. They have invested time, money, and a lot of effort into a transformation and they don’t want to lose what they have built up! As I have said before, I believe that the mental component of the transformation process is where most people “fall off the wagon” and blow their hard earned results. It is important, however, to remember that you can’t just sit at home and “think” away the pounds. You are going to have to get your hands dirty and sweat it out a bit. There are dozens of paths you can take when it comes to exercise and nutrition. Everyone will gravitate towards different opportunities depending on what you like and what gets the best results. As you try different things out I want you to consider a very important question:

“Am I just doing something or am I actually getting something done?”

Here’s an example that we can look at. Let’s say we have two people that have each signed up for a gym membership. We will call them Sally and Sara. By signing up for a gym membership and going to the gym they are each “doing something”. Let’s say that Sally goes to the gym and does a consultation with a trainer. They do some initial measurements and set some goals for the next three months. Sally isn’t 100% perfect but she does her best to stick to her plan and when she is in the gym she hits it hard. After three months Sally has lost 25 lbs and has gone down a few sizes in her pants. She saw success by taking action, forming a plan, and working hard to stick to that plan. She was successful in achieving measurable results.

Meanwhile Sara goes and does the elliptical machine after work for 20 minutes three times a week and talks on her cell phone the entire time. After three months Sara has stopped coming in because she wasn’t seeing any results. Too many people sign up for a program or a membership and then they don’t put much effort into the actual transformation process. They don’t see much change in their health or the way they look but they tell themselves “Hey at least I’m doing something!”……and that mindset will not lead to success!

We have to remember that there are TWO different causes for a lack of results. Either the program isn’t working or the person isn’t working the program. It is very important to ask yourself some key questions to see where the problem might be if you are not seeing the results you are after.

I have actually come up with a chart that I like to use for this specific situation. I call this the “Results Per Dollar” chart or RPD for short. When you invest your hard earned cash into a fitness program you need to expect results. This chart also helps you make sure that YOU are putting in your share of the work. This will be a well timed wake up call for many people out there!

 

Time Frame Fitness Activities Paid For Approx $ spent total Approx time spent total Results Achieved Your effort/coachability 1-10

 

As you can see from the diagram, you will simply enter in a time frame, what fitness/nutrition programs you have paid money for, what results you have seen in that time frame, and rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 on how dedicated and coachable you have been. Filling out this chart should help you reflect on what you have been paying for and you should come to one of three decisions:

  1. Stay the course: Things are going well and you need to keep going.
  2. Not getting results: You are doing the wrong activities/programs and you need to change things up.
  3. Not giving it your best: You need to step up your game and give more effort to the programs you are paying for.

Always remember that your free time is one of the most valuable assets that you have. When you choose to spend your free time at the gym, in a group fit class, or any other healthy activity make sure that you are getting something done and spending that time wisely!